Just A Boy
by oonaseckar
Summary: Erik moved the coin. It's a Notting Hill AU set in the 60s, and a naturalized British Erik and Edie. Mild-mannered Erik, bespectacled, cardiganed. Mutants have citizens' rights but also bigotry. Erik and Edie are naturalized British citizens: Erik killed Shaw, they escaped Germany. Many mutants are 'in the closet' inc. Charles and Erik. Raven was adopted into the Lehnsherr family.


Raven stirred, alerted by the long, long silence to the fact that business was exceptionally slow. There was no great need to worry: their bookshop was ticking over in the black - just about - and had been for years now, given a fortunate location and loyal clientele. It was just - wet Wednesdays, and early closing day, and a long way off payday for a lot of folks. The thing was, a lack of customers gave her the urge to mess with her brother for her own personal amusement.

She looked over at him, hunched beside the elderly till, a vintage Guy de Maupassant spread out before him and a mug cooling by his side.

If his chunky cable-knit cardigan was any more enveloping he'd be cuddled up in it like a sleeping bag. The collar was so proud it might as well be an Elizabethan ruff. 'The spectacles,' was what she snapped at him, though, loud and without warning. He startled and jumped, almost knocking his mug over and shooting her a pained, reproachful look. 'Can you please, please dump the spectacles? It's been three bloody years, brother mine, since you actually had them prescribed for that infected corneal scratch. And having clear glass put in them instead of the prescription lens? Honestly, the affectation. Along with the cardigans you look like a cuddly old academic. What about your marriageability? How am I ever going to get rid of you in that state?

'I like them,' he said defensively. 'I feel naked without them at this point.' '

'You hide behind them,' she said sharply. 'Just so no attractive males might conceivably take a look at you and get any closer.' He hunched up at that, and shot a shifty look around.

'Oh for God's sake,' Raven said. 'The place is so dead we'll have to shift the business into being a funeral parlour as things stand. And anyway,' she said, getting up from the footstool and shifting as she walked towards him – to her blue form, to him, to the milkman, to her habitual blond form, 'if the world is starting to be just about ready for mutants, then it's going to accept homosexuality at some point, Erik.'

xxx

Business picked up a bit as the afternoon ticked on, but still left Erik plenty of time to ponder. There was no way he was giving up his cardigans, obviously - that was a battle he'd fought and won long since. The spectacles, on the other hand - he had to admit that logically Raven had something of a point. They were a prop that comforted him - hiding his reactions, making his eyes less noticeable, giving him something to twiddle with if anyone tried talking to him – or god forbid, chatting him up. Maybe: maybe he should try operating without them. Off and on. On a trial basis. But not this afternoon.

The whole 'homosexuality is just as normal and acceptable as mutation' lecture he tried sincerely not to think about, and failed. The thing was, it wasn't as if mutation was all that accepted. Oh yes, post-war Britain was a society that prided itself, puff-chested and vociferous, on its tolerance. There was no rounding up of the different, there were no stars, no camps here. That didn't mean someone with a visible mutation wasn't taking a risk on a quiet walk home after a night at the pub. Or someone with a clearly mutant child didn't run the gauntlet of daily rude, or abusive, or just plain well-meaning but tactless remarks on a daily basis.

And so it went for homosexuality, but more so in a way. Since that was still a criminal act, and viewed as a choice, not an infliction, by many. Put plain, he was in no hurry to advertise his mutation, nor his predilection, and he hoped his little sister understood. He wanted her kept safe: all of his miraculously whole little family kept safe. And if the price of safety was hiding, he'd pay it.

Raven, though... he sighed. And when he sent her out on the doughnut run, he asked her twice to please please stay in her blond form. For him, as an indulgence.

Her ranting had set his mind drifting and ruminating, though, and while her errand brought him a little peace, it served a dual purpose. That spare twenty minutes, it meant he could cast a crafty eye around the aisles: yes, still deserted. And then settle back behind the counter, reach under the shelf and pull out a handful of magazines.

Oh, the melodrama, he chastised himself. As if he was doing something shameful: as if it was a collection of particularly hair-raising pornography. It was perfectly innocent. Harmless lightweight reading matter. Well, perhaps the poolside shots... Gossip, Star Parade, Inside TV, Dreamboat Drive... they were harmless. You could have given them to your mother to read.

Not that you would want to actually be caught poring through one of them when your mother walked through the door of your shop, even so. He shuffled them swiftly back under the counter with extreme dispatch, breathing fast, smiling with genuine pleasure.

In a moment he was round the counter and hugging her, and she was laughing. 'Liebling, you'd think for sure I hadn't seen you in six months! Only last night we were in front of the TV watching Mr Frost together! With you finishing off the torte, don't think I didn't check the tin when you were gone...'

She patted his cheek, small and round and coiffed and healthy, pink-cheeked. The satisfaction of it hit him, just the same as it did every day of his life. Every extra day with Edie, it was a gift to him. And a gift from him, in a sense.

'Mamma, a day without you is six months in my heart,' he vowed with saccharine sincerity, and she thwopped him with her glove. 'Nonsense. Silly boy. Now set me a coffee up to brew, and let me take a look at your magazines. Yes, darling,' she said, at his expression. 'The ones you just shuffled away out of my sight.'


End file.
